Jordanian king warns of Muslim world "destruction"

Jordan's king Abdullah II warned Tuesday of the potential "destruction" of the Muslim world, in light of a climate of sectarian violence raging across the Middle East, news agencies reported Tuesday.[2]The king was speaking at Amman's Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, [3]where a conference was attended by 100 religious scholars, both Sunni and Shia, from 35 countries. "This conference coincides with our repeated calls to reject and end ethnic and intra-religious sectarian violence, which entails a recipe for the destruction of the Islamic world," King Abdullah was quoted as saying by AP, a reference to Syria's increasingly sectarian civil war[4], as well as to rising tensions between Shia and Sunni across the region. [5]King Abdullah also urged Muslim clerics to try and find a solution to the region's ills."You are the scholars of the Islamic world and it is your responsibility to confront the ethnic and sectarian strife in Syria," he said according to AFP news agency. "The bloodshed in Syria should be stopped and the unity of this country, and that of the rest of the Arab and Islamic nation should be preserved," he added.

Jordan is now home to over 500,000 Syrian refugees. There are increasingly fears that the sectarian violence in neighbouring Syria could spill over into Jordan.